1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems that permit individuals to make travel arrangements and to plan travel activities, including such systems that are accessible via interconnected computer networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to Travel Reservation and Information Planning Systems (TRIPS) that provide travel information and special offers for goods and services such as accommodations and reservations associated with such areas of interest. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a completely integrated system enabling an individual to plan, review, locate, schedule and select or execute customized or personalized travel arrangements and activities in association with map displays or other output of travel routes, chronological events, diverse travel topics and geographic points of interest along such routes. In the present invention, all of these capabilities are integrated with a broad range of transactionable offers for goods/services such as transportation or performance tickets and diverse accommodations reservations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior systems for the general purpose of planning and arranging travel from one location to another have been developed by, among others, the assignee of the present application. The assignee's systems are described in the cross-referenced patent and patent applications noted above. In particular, those systems have involved the use of computer-based databases combined with software to create map displays of selectable and variable levels of detail. They also include the capability to selectively plan a trip from one location to another, with intermediate "waypoints" anywhere along the way. As part of that planning, the user of the prior associated systems has the capability to define the route of interest, to observe the location of points of interest and events of interest along the way and within a defined range of the route selected. Those points and events of interest may be observed in a multimedia display arrangeable by the user. Alternatively, points of interest and events of interest, which may be observed on the display at varying levels of detail, may be used to arrange a travel route as a function of interest in visiting those points rather than as a specific function of the route alone. Other features of the assignee's prior related systems include, but are not limited to: 1) the capability to retrieve detailed address locations; 2) coordinate between digital maps--observable on displays at selectable levels of detail--and corresponding paper maps, each having associated grid arrangements for referencing between the two maps; and 3) the capability to communicate map information between remote devices, which remote devices may include Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors and/or transmitters. These and other features are described more completely in the referenced patent and patent applications. While the assignee's noted prior systems provide extensive advantages in the planning of travel, in the observation of points of interest and events of interest along the way, and in the communication of such related information between two or more remote devices, they do not include a completely integrated capability to execute travel arrangements.
There are many systems designed to aid, in a limited way, in the planning and execution of travel arrangements. For many years, travel arrangements have been made for individuals by travel agencies having stand-alone systems with electronic or simple telephonic links to travel providers such as airlines, passenger trains, buses, car rental agencies and the like, and links to travel-related service providers, such as hotels, restaurants, entertainment facilities, etc. People interested in making travel arrangements, and in discovering the availability of activities located relatively proximate to one or more travel destinations, have been required to contact such travel agencies. Under this travel-arrangement method, an individual interested in traveling presented a travel origin and a travel destination and was advised by the agency of the availability and scheduling of travel means for that particular route. Requests for information regarding travel-related services and activities at the destination were handled in a similar fashion. Reservations for the travel and related services and activities were made by the travel agency and the individual was provided with an itinerary and paper materials necessary to conduct the travel, to issue the services, and to conduct the activities. In effect then, the individual was required to rely upon the travel agency for travel-related information and services. Any modifications in travel plans made in this way involved a considerable expenditure of time and effort on the part of the individual as well as the travel agency. Further, it was and is often the case that a particular travel agency may have information for only a fraction of the travel service and activity providers in existence. Under this method it is not unusual for the individual to be unable to completely custom plan a trip, to miss areas and points of interest, or to miss an activity of interest. Moreover, once the traveler is at a particular destination, or at an intermediary point along the way, the travel agent is of limited usefulness, particularly when specific information about, for example, emergency services or particular goods or services, is required on an immediate basis.
Another problem associated with travel arrangements made by parties other than the individual taking the trip is the paperwork involved. It is not unusual for there to be errors in the materials provided, for the materials to be delivered in an untimely manner, or for the individual to be required to travel to a service provider location--such as an airport--in order to obtain the materials, such as the airline tickets. This can be a significant inconvenience. These paperwork problems tend to be restricted to airline tickets and hotel reservation confirmations. However, a less developed but perhaps more important type of paperwork may be vouchers and various types of coupons associated with entertainment and activity sites located proximate to a travel destination. Such materials are even more inaccessible to the traveler who has yet to reach the destination. Moreover, activities coupons, for example, are distributed through a wide array of sources, such as direct mail, magazines, newspapers, and the like, that are not particularly easy for the user to obtain. It is apparent then that as the number of materials providers increases in association with travel plans, the number of errors associated with such materials will also increase. In addition, it is often difficult to keep track of a disparate set of papers, each with its own level of importance. While barcoding has become more widely used in many areas in recent years in order to reduce paperwork, its usage has been less than widespread in the travel field. "Ticketless travel" eliminates paper ticket documents but provides the consumer with a number or an alphanumeric code for confirmation and access.
In recent years, individuals have gained greater direct access to information related to travel service providers via interconnected computer networks defined broadly as "the Internet." Such information includes airline schedules, flight availability, and limited ticketing, hotel locations and telephone numbers, and entertainment location information. However, in order to reserve a seat on a plane, or a room in a hotel, the individual must still make separate contact with the particular provider and make the reservation based upon that provider's distinct reservation system. For example, if an individual wishes to travel from New York to Los Angeles via plane, he or she can get "online" and discover flight schedules and seating availability through an airline-schedule service provider, much as a travel agency does. However, in order to reserve a seat on a flight of interest, the individual commonly must make either direct contact with the airline service or some agent of the airline service and arrange payment, typically resulting in receipt of a paper output--the flight ticket--that must either be picked up by the traveler, or that is delivered to the traveler. Any attempt to integrate different aspects of a travel plan--a flight, a rental car, a hotel, entertainment activities, for example--must either be completed through a diligent search of a plurality of online service providers, or a trip to the aforementioned travel agent. Given the continually expanding scope of online services, the former approach is becoming increasingly difficult. Moreover, it fails to resolve the problem of creating an array of transactions that are conducted through a plurality of service providers and that must be coordinated in an organized manner. The present online travel planning capability also fails to eliminate the need to obtain documents such as itineraries, hotel bookings, flight tickets, activity reservations, etc., from multiple sources.
Examples of online systems apparently designed to give users greater flexibility in discovering travel possibilities include a reservation access system named Internet Travel Network located at http://www.itn.net, which includes access to an online booking system provided by Casto Travel located at http://www.casto.com. Both providers give browsers the capability to link up with many travel service providers who may or may not choose to make their services available to the browser. The booking system also permits "ticketless" travel, but ticketing must still come through a third party provider with separate fees. Microsoft.TM. at http:.backslash..backslash.www.expedia.msn.com offers a similar Internet Web Site "travel agency" to book flights, hotel rooms, and rental cars; to participate in travel forums; and to browse assorted news, weather, currency, multimedia guidebooks, and photographs. These types of online systems have some capability in permitting the user to gain access to a wide array of services, including travel and activities; however, as earlier noted, this capability is not easily enacted in that the user must go through a considerable search process in order to gather information regarding topics, events, available goods or services, and/or points of interest at the travel destination or along the travel route, or related to the user's selected travel time frame. Other Internet sites concentrate on local directory listing information but do not provide readily useable travel planning, itinerary, routing and/or booking capabilities--e.g., CitySearch.TM. and MetroBeat.TM. at http:.backslash..backslash.www.citysearch.com and Bigbook's Internet Yellow Pages at http:.backslash..backslash.www.bigbook.com.
In addition to the problems associated with an individual's attempt to carry out his or her own travel planning through existing separate online systems, there is the difficulty in appreciating the travel route and the activities, and points of interest along the way. That is, when an individual makes arrangements to travel to a destination, it is not unusual for that to be that individual's first visit to that location. As a result, there are any number of unknowns he or she must deal with, including, but not limited to, the hotel accommodations, the activities available, and--perhaps most importantly--how to get from the airport, train station, or bus terminal to an ultimate destination. For the first problem noted it is therefore desirable to have a visual display or other travel information output of the area to be visited, as well as previews of the accommodations and/or any points of interest in the area, scheduled events in the area, topical information, and the availability of accommodations, goods and/or services available in the area. There is no presently existing completely integrated system using such individualized multimedia presentations in a travel planning system. For the second problem, a "customizable" map or other travel plan output to which the user can attach selected travel information from such previews would be particularly useful. In that regard, it is to be noted that there are several digital map systems that may be accessed via storage means, including, but not limited to, compact disk-read only memory (CDROM) or PCMCIA cards.
As specifically noted in the cross-referenced COMPUTER-AIDED ROUTING SYSTEM application, a variety of computer hardware and software travel planning aids are currently available on the market primarily for vacation and recreational travel planning. A number of the travel guide software packages focus on National Parks of the United States or recreational tours and activities with prepared travelogs or prepared assemblages of multimedia travel information on the different recreational geographical locations or recreational activities. Such travel software programs are exemplified for example by the America NavigaTour.TM. MediAlive.TM. multimedia travel guide produced by CD Technology, Inc.; the Great Vacations.TM. Family Travel Guide by Positive Software Solutions; the Adventures.TM. CDROM Program for worldwide adventure travel by Deep River Publishing, Inc.; and National Parks of America, a CDROM product of Multicom Publishing, Inc. which contains a directory of all National Parks in the United States.
Rand McNally produces a software travel planning product under the trademark TRIPMAKER.TM. for planning a trip by car in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Rand McNally Tripmaker.TM. software also calculates quickest, shortest, and preferred scenic routes for the trip planner. While the Rand McNally product incorporates a database of many points of interest, the multimedia travelog information appears limited to preplanned scenic tours.
Similarly the American Automobile Association in cooperation with Compton's NewMedia also provides travel planning from starting point to destination point with stopping points in between. The CDROM product contains a database of travel information. However the multimedia information available from the database appears limited to "suggested routes of travel," again limiting user choice.
In each case it appears that travel information from multimedia sources is preassembled by editors so that the user or trip planner is limited to "canned" or prepared multimedia travelogs of prescribed, suggested, or preplanned tours. In addition, the user is limited to information fragments about this or that particular object of interest or this or that particular place. There is no opportunity or user capability of selectivity in constructing a user customized travelog of assembled multimedia information for previewing a particular user determined route of travel. The user is relegated to travelogs and multimedia assemblages prepared for routes and tours proposed by other editors. Moreover, there is no provision for the capability to permit an individual or group to execute the travel plans once developed. That is, a user may observe a travel sequence of interest on a computer display, but is then required to one or more travel service providers to enact the plan. Further, travel arrangement materials must be obtained from those providers, or even from an intermediary.
Some attempts have been made to give individuals and groups direct access to travel service providers. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,499 issued to Garback describes an individual-accessible planning system that permits a user to develop travel arrangements through linkage to service providers and to ticket providers. However, there is no capability to observe the travel location on a digital display in conjunction with the development of the travel arrangements. Moreover, these travel arrangements tend to be fixed based upon pre-set travel destinations. That is, the user cannot create a customized travel plan and execute that plan through a mix of travel arrangements. Garback can only provide the materials necessary to travel from point A to point B--if those points are airports--and to get the basic car and hotel that most travelers require. There is no provision for planning travel to locations where there is not an airport. There is also no provision for detailed information--multimedia or otherwise--related to points of interest at point B, or at any intermediate point.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,021,953 issued to Webber et al. describes a system that provides the user with information regarding airline flight options. In particular, the system is directed to weighting various flight options by expense, convenience, and availability, and giving the user travel possibilities on that basis. In a sense, the Webber system is customizable; however, it is specifically restricted to making flight arrangements and so the customizing is limited to that part of a trip. For this reason, the Webber system suffers from the same limitations associated with the Garback device.
In general, these prior computer reservation services (CRS) are basically limited to commercial airline reservations. As a minimum input threshold, the prior CRS require that the user knows and enters their intended departure point, final destination, any intermediate stopovers, plus the travel time frame. Existing Internet travel information sites have taken these same limitations--poorly compensating in some cases by giving the user access by indiscriminate "hot links" to an overwhelming variety, number, and selection of other Internet sites containing undifferentiated and uneven amounts of travel information along with circular hot links to similar sites. These systems offer little or no computerized aid to answer, or even to ask, fundamental common-sense travel planning questions--such as when, where, what to do or who to visit, how to get there and back, and/or how much do comparable travel arrangements or itineraries cost.
It is to be noted that other travel arrangement systems have been described. They, along with the prior-art systems previously discussed, fail, however, in that they do not provide a complete access system that gives the user all of the information of interest and materials required when travel is involved. Moreover, they fail to provide a system that takes into account all of the variations in user background that influences travel choices. While this variability has not been completely addressed, there are several general attributes in a complete travel planning and execution system that would address that variability. In general, it is of importance to a user to be able to combine two or more of the following options within a single integrated travel/activity planning system: 1) consider topics, activities, or things to do apart from a specific destination; 2) set the travel destination or destinations; 3) set times/dates for the start and finish of a possible trip; 4) determine the mode or modes of travel required to reach those destinations; 5) discover information regarding points of interest and activities along the travel route and/or at the destinations; 6) discover information on events of interest, scheduled performances, meetings and the like as related to specific dates/times, topics and/or places; 7) get information on transportation, lodgings and other accommodations available at the destinations and/or at specified dates/times; 8) make the reservations associated with the travel, the accommodations, and the activities available, plus take advantage of diverse, special offers for goods/services from participating third-party providers; 9) get the documentation necessary to carry out the travel and related activities, such as tickets, ticket vouchers, price discount or extra service coupons, etc.; 10) observe the travel route at various levels of magnification, the destinations, events of interest, travel topics, and points of interest located on a map display; and 11) get travel plan output such as a paper printout of the map display or equivalent text, audio, electronic or other output that may include information regarding the points of interest as well as physical documentation or equivalent codes that may be the tickets, etc.
Therefore, what is needed is a system with such complete integration of all aspects of travel/activity required by a user. Such a system should be capable of permitting a user to control and conduct such travel and/or activities as a function of four basic questions in any order and in any combination. Those questions are: WHERE?, WHAT?, WHEN?, and HOW?